CORDOVA — The Bankhead Middle School robotics team, Blue Devil Robotics (BDR) The Girls +1, won second place at the VEX Robotics regional competition in Jasper this month and is preparing for the VEX IQ State Robotics Competition.
According to the VEX Robotics website, VEX is an educational program designed to supply teachers with the information and materials needed to develop Pre-K through college-age students’ “creativity, teamwork, leadership, and problem-solving” skills and “create an identity as a STEM learner.”
One of the main ways that VEX has helped students gain STEM skills is through regional championships, or competitions, set up by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (REC) according to the competitor’s age range.
“Our elementary school and middle school (teams) compete mostly in regional VEX IQ competitions in which students use plastic parts that snap together (to build robots), while the high school (team) competes in VEX VRC in which the students use metal parts that they bolt together with nuts and bolts, cut, and have a little more autonomy on how they build and program the robots,” Amber Parsons, Bankhead Middle School assistant principal and Blue Devil Robotics coach, said.
“However, each competition has a different game to play and has multiple ways to score points within the game, … including Skills (a robot skill score) where they use just autonomous programming, their team and their robot to try and score as many points as possible,” she added. “The teams also have to maintain an engineering design notebook and have to complete an interview where the judges interview them about their design process, robots, teamwork and about what problems they had and how they came up with their solution.”
Some regional competitions also place two of the student teams randomly together and task them with driving a random bot around a track for a minimum of six rounds while also scoring points.
“This separate part of the competition makes the two teams work together as an alliance to score as many points as they possibly can for each round,” Parsons said. “It also teaches them project and time management skills, critical thinking skills and how to work together as a group, make decisions as a group, support (teammates) decisions and communicate with adults and peers in a productive way.”
Competing in higher-level competitions, such as the national VEX Robotics World Championship, has also helped the students hone their STEM skills.
“VEX Worlds brings 800 teams from about 45 different countries together in Dallas, Texas, to compete for the World Championship,” Parsons said.
So far, six of Bankhead Middle School’s robotics teams have qualified to compete in VEX Worlds since Parsons started the robotics team 13 years ago.
“Out of those teams, we have won three VEX Worlds trophies, the Sportsmanship Award, Inspire Award and a Design Award at Worlds,” Parsons said. “This year, we have one team (BDR The Girls +1) that has advanced to the state competition, has earned the Design Award twice, the Innovate Award twice and a Judge’s Award once … and right now we’re looking at what awards at state would qualify them for Worlds so they can start honing in on where their strengths are … to try to earn a trip to Worlds for my fourth year in a row.”
“We were right here (at the school) in January after our second competition here at Bankhead, and they called us up for the Design Award and I was like, ‘We have gotten this a lot. I wish it qualified for State,'” Ruby Gilbert, a fifth-grader at Bankhead Middle School and member of BDR The Girls +1, said. “Then, Mrs. Parsons called us to the office, and Tyler screamed, ‘We’re going to State!’ … and I just ran down the halls screaming.”
“One of my favorite things that we’ve done as a team was probably in fifth grade whenever we got the Judges Award at state,” Joely Davis, a seventh-grader at Bankhead and another member of BDR The Girls +1, added. “Even though the award didn’t qualify us for the Worlds, it was a huge accomplishment for us, and we just all got so excited.”
One way the team has decided to hone their skills is by competing in as many robotics competitions as possible, including the VEX Robotics Regional Competition at Bevill State Community College in Jasper, where BDR The Girls +1 tied for second place at on Saturday, Feb. 1.
“We had already qualified for state at the last competition, … but we still took this team so they could get some practice in and tied for second place at that tournament,” Parsons said. “We were also hoping to get one of our other teams qualified.”
During the competition, BDR The Girls +1 competed against 34 other teams — around 344 other students — in a series of team teamwork and problem-solving-centered courses.
The team win, while not a first-place trophy, has inspired the team to work even harder at the VEX IQ State Robotics Competition, which will take place at Auburn University from Friday, Feb. 28, through Saturday, March 1, so they can return to the 2025 VEX Robotics World Championship, which will be held at Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, Tuesday, May 6, through Wednesday, May 14.
“My first year on the robotics team we got the Skills Awards, and that’s how we made it to Worlds. One of the best things about it was screaming at the top of your lungs at Worlds and hanging out with the judges, including some of the people who were the referees and stuff,” Tyler Anderson, a seventh-grader at Bankhead and another member of team BDR The Girls +1, said. “They were some of the nicest people. I wish we could see them again.”
Their victory has also helped the team to realize how to celebrate the small successes along the way, according to Parsons.
“The biggest lesson that robotics has taught me, and I hope to pass on to my students, is to learn how to celebrate those small victories,” Parsons said. “So, when we score the first point, that’s a celebration. When we make a milestone of a score in a competition, that’s huge. When we win any award at any competition or if we make it to finals, we celebrate that, and I think what’s very important in life for mental health and personal success is to learn how to find joy and celebration in all of the small victories because that is ultimately how you experience success.”
“And even though we are not at the point yet, we use the word ‘yet’ a lot, where we have the expectations of going to Worlds in Dallas and winning the entire competition, we have learned to celebrate the small victories, live in those small celebrations,” she added. “If a team does a phenomenal job and it’s not our team, we don’t care. It’s awesome, we’re excited to see it and we’re celebrating that.”
Parents or students wanting to learn more about the Bankhead Middle School robotics program or any of Blue Devils Robotics’ future VEX IQ competitions can contact Parsons through the Bankhead Middle School’s main line at 205-483-7245 or by email at parsonsa@wcslive.com.
“Not all students excel in the classroom, (sports or band), but all students have intelligence, and it’s important to me that everybody recognizes what their strengths are and then uses those strengths to help them be successful in other areas of their life, so I have intentionally tried to find those students that I can see that potential in who are not doing other things to try to give them an opportunity to celebrate their intelligence” in other areas such as mechanics, programming, computer science, speaking, documentation and many other outlets not usually focused on in the classroom, Parsons said.
She added, “In the robotics world, everybody is lifting each other, encouraging each other and I hope that is a skill that these students can carry with them through high school, college and then through the rest of their lives.”
